Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Some of you already know Cake Monkey. Some of you think you know Cake Monkey from their cakewiches and Yo-hos from Umami Burger, or their maple oatmeal cookies Li'l Merris available at Silverlake Wine. But the real Cake Monkey is even better than that.Available by phone order are 3" individual-sized layer cakes, and these cakes are the ones raved about on Bon Appetit and LA Times.Here's the deal: Cakes must be ordered in advance and requires a minimum order of 9 cakes total AND minimum 3 cakes per flavor ordered. Meaning for each minimum order you can only try out 3 flavors.

And with 12 different flavors offered, this is a hard proposition. And trust me, you don't need to eat 9 cakes anyway, so the best chance to order some Cake Monkey cakes is to 1) share it with at least 2 other people, or 3) splurge for a party.

I did number 1 above and picked up the cakes at their bakery in Glendale (no storefront available) and below is my loot!

Raspberry Red Velvet CakeThe same moist red velvet cake with creamy raspberry icing in between, just like its cakewich counterpart. But double stack that and instead of chocolate shell, think MORE raspberry vanilla icing that makes the cake even more moist.

Must Love Chocolate (Devil’s Food Cake with Crunchy Valrhona Chocolate Pearls and Dark Chocolate Frosting, Topped with Crumbled Honeycomb)You really must love chocolate in order to be able to finish this, but if you do you'd love it. The intensity of the dark chocolate and the richness of the devil's food cake really get you hooked, though it's so rich and sweet that half a cake is more than enough for one sitting.

But then again, I think that might be the case for most of their 3 inchers.

Pecan Dacquoise (Brown Butter Cake with Pecan Dacquoise and Caramel Buttercream)Perhaps my favorite with its lighter flavor. It's lightly sweet making finishing a whole cake that much easier, and the nutty, creamy pecan dacquoise takes the cake to a whole new level.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Water Grill was supposed to be my dineLA finale - before they decided to extend it LA&OC Foodie had planned this dinner and extended invitations to me and Rumdood, which we jumped on (or at least I did).

Since Water Grill is participating in the extension - all throughout February, I decided to blog about it sooner rather than later.

Although our party was late for our reservation, Water Grill graciously held our table for us. As the night went on, all tables were filled - good sign. The $44 prix-fixe dinner menu is, naturally, all seafood (except for dessert).

I started with the House Cured Salmon, with Potato and Brown Mustard Seed Salad with Dill.The cured salmon was great, but I thought that the dish as a whole was a bit too busy. I would have preferred it simple and highlight the delicious taste of the cured salmon itself. I suppose I could've just picked off everything else.

For the entree I went with Grilled Columbia River White Sturgeon - Coriander Spiced Yam, Rapini, Baby Roasted Beets, Pearled Barley and OreganoI really enjoyed the fish. It was quite meaty with a nice grilled flavor, but still moist. I liked it with the pearled barley but although I did enjoy the yam, I thought the two of them were better off being eaten separately.

For dessert, I had the Red Velvet Pudding with Mascarpone Ice Cream.It's like an extra moist red velvet cupcake with ice cream rather than icing. It was quite rich. Tasted pretty good but got too rich for me at the end, especially when the ice cream was all gone.

Throughout the dinner, our server was very nice, friendly, and even funny. The food was very solid and with the great company, we all really enjoyed ourselves. Considering the regular price for a fish dinner entree is about $36, the DineLA menu is quite a deal. If you guys considered checking this place out for the extended DineLA, I'd recommend it!